Why did President Barack Obama announce Friday that he has decided to end the American troop presence in Iraq by the end of the year?

The United States had been negotiating with Iraqi leaders for months on a possible continuing military presence in Iraq. But the negotiations stalled over a key hitch: Iraqi leaders refused to comply with Washington's insistence that any American forces serving in Iraq be granted legal immunity in that country.

"The end of war in Iraq reflects a larger transition," Obama said Friday, noting that the number of American troops deployed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has decreased from 180,000 when he took office to less than half that by the end of this year. "The tide of war is receding."

On Jan. 1, the United States and Iraq will have a "normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect," Obama said.

Over the summer, however, the United States was asking to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq next year. "This was well below the 20-30,000 troops that military experts believed optimum," Ken Pollack, a member of Bill Clinton's National Security Council who wrote an influential book advocating war with Iraq, wrote in an analysis distributed by the Brookings Institution. "Just a few weeks ago, the Administration then unilaterally decided to cut that number down to about 3,000. There was nothing that 3,000 troops were usefully going to do in Iraq. No mission they could adequately perform from among the long list of critical tasks they have been undertaking until the present. At most, they would be a symbolic force, that might give Tehran some pause before trying to push around the Iraqi government." Pollack continued:

However, even playing that role would have been hard for so small a force since they would have had tremendous difficulty defending themselves from the mostly-Shi'ah (these days), Iranian-backed terrorists who continue to attack American troops and bases wherever they can.

At that point, it had become almost unimaginable that any Iraqi political leader would champion the cause of a residual American military presence in the face of popular resentment and ferocious Iranian opposition. What Iraqi would publicly demand that Iraq accommodate the highly unpopular American demands for immunity for U.S. troops when Washington was going to leave behind a force incapable of doing anything to preserve Iraq's fragile and increasingly strained peace? Why take the heat for a fig leaf?

Of course, the truth was that the Iraqi government itself had already become deeply ambivalent, if not downright hostile to a residual American military presence. Although it was useful to the prime minister to have some American troops there as a signal to Iran that it shouldn't act too overbearing lest Baghdad ask Washington to beef up its presence, he and his cohorts probably believe that they can secure the same advantages from American arms sales and training missions. The flip side to that was that the American military presence had become increasingly burdensome to the government--challenging its interpretation of events, preventing it from acting as it saw fit, hindering their consolidation of power, insisting that Iraqi officials adhered to rule of law, and acting unilaterally against criminals and terrorists the government would have preferred to overlook. All of this had become deeply inconvenient for the government.

Though there have been reports for weeks that American-Iraqi negotiations were stuck on that and other disagreements, Pentagon officials had always discounted those reports as premature, saying negotiations were still continuing.

And it's worth noting that, in the details of the arrangement Obama announced Friday, the United States will maintain an Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, which will consist of hundreds, if not thousands of American defense personnel.

There were other signs of wiggle room in Obama's announcement. "As I told Prime Minister Maliki, we will continue discussions on how we might help Iraq train and equip its forces, again, just as we offer training and assistance to countries around the world," Obama said Friday. "After all, there will be some difficult days ahead for Iraq and the United States will continue to have an interest in an Iraq that is stable, secure and self-reliant."

Still, Obama's announcement Friday does not represent only a linguistic sleight of hand, for either country. Almost nine years after the American invasion to topple Saddam Hussein--and in the year since popular uprisings began to topple a succession of the Middle East's long-entrenched dictators and autocrats from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, not primarily at the hands of the American military but by the power of those countries' own people--the United States and Iraq will finally be able to have a "fresh start" to their post-war relationship, as Obama put it Friday.

"The United States is fulfilling our agreement with an Iraqi government that wants to shape its own future," John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said in a statement Friday. "We are creating a new partnership that shifts from a clear military focus to a new relationship that is more expansive, hinging on increased diplomatic, economic and cultural relations."

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - NATO called an end to its air war in Libya, and the clan of Muammar Gaddafi demanded a chance to bury the body that lay on display in a meat locker after a death as brutal and chaotic as his 42-year rule.

In a statement on a Syria-based pro-Gaddafi television station, the ousted dictator's family asked for the bodies of Gaddafi, his son Mo'tassim, and others who were killed on Thursday by fighters who overran his hometown Sirte.

"We call on the UN, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and Amnesty International to force the Transitional Council to hand over the martyrs' bodies to our tribe in Sirte and to allow them to perform their burial ceremony in accordance with Islamic customs and rules," the statement said.

At an understated and sparsely-attended news conference late on Friday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the Western alliance had taken a preliminary decision to call a halt to Operation Unified Protector on October 31.

Like other Western officials, Rasmussen expressed no regrets in public about the gruesome death of the deposed Libyan dictator, who was captured alive by the forces of the National Transitional Council but was brought dead to a hospital.

"We mounted a complex operation with unprecedented speed and conducted it with the greatest of care," Rasmussen said. "I'm very proud of what we have achieved."

The NATO operation, officially intended to protect civilians, effectively ended on Thursday with French warplanes blasting Gaddafi's convoy as he and others tried to escape a final stand in Sirte.

Gaddafi was captured wounded but alive hiding in a drain under a road. The world has since seen grainy film of him being roughed up by his captors while he pleads with them to respect his rights.

NTC officials have said Gaddafi later died of wounds in the ambulance, but the ambulance driver, Ali Jaghdoun, told Reuters that Gaddafi was already dead when he picked up the body.

"I didn't try to revive him because he was already dead," Jaghdoun said, in testimony that adds greater weight to the widespread assumption that Gaddafi was lynched.

The U.N. human rights arm said an investigation was needed to into whether he was summarily executed. The interim leaders have yet to decide what to do with the corpse.

BURIAL DISPUTE

In Misrata, a local commander, Addul-Salam Eleiwa, showed off the body, torso bare, on a mattress inside a metal-lined cold-store by a market on Friday. There was a bullet hole in his head.

"He will get his rights, like any Muslim. His body will be washed and treated with dignity. I expect he will be buried in a Muslim cemetery within 24 hours," he said.

Dozens of people, many with cellphone cameras, filed in to see that he was dead.

"There's something in our hearts we want to get out," said Abdullah al-Suweisi, 30, as he waited. "It is the injustice of 40 years. There is hatred inside. We want to see him."

In Tripoli, Gaddafi's death prompted a carnival-like celebration, with fireworks, a bouncy castle and candy floss for the children. "Muammar, bad," one small girl said to foreign journalists in English. "Boom boom."

"For some people from outside Libya it could look wrong that we are celebrating a death with our children," said one man with a child on his shoulders. "But it was 42 years with the devil."

RISKS OF DIVISION

Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and heir-apparent remains at large, believed by NTC officials to have escaped from besieged Sirte and headed for a southern border.

Without the glue of hatred for Gaddafi and his tribe to unite the factions, some fear a descent into the kind of strife that bedevils Iraq after Saddam Hussein. Optimists say that so far Libya's new rulers have quarreled but not fought.

"Can an inclusive, effective national government be formed? Yes, if factions can avoid fighting," Jon Marks, chairman of Britain's Cross Border Information consultancy said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the NTC had promised to explain how Gaddafi was killed.

"They're dealing with the death itself as well as the aftermath in as transparent a way as I think they can," he said. "They've fought bravely to liberate their country from this dictator. And, you know, he met an ignominious end yesterday."

Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's second son Seif al-Islam was captured Friday in Libya's Zeltin city, 160 km east of the Libyan capital, Egypt's Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

A field commander of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) told Al-Arabiya satellite channel over phone that Seif al-Islam had been captured in the south of the city and was now receiving medical treatment, Xinhua quoted the report as saying Friday evening.

Photos and a video of his detention will be made public within hours, said commander Ali el-Shawesh.

Shawesh, however, refused to reveal the gravity of Seif al-Islam's injuries.

The report could not be immediately confirmed by officials of Libya's National Transitional Council.

Qaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, died Thursday after his hometown Sirte fell to the National Transitional Council fighters.

Seif al-Islam has been on the run since NTC forces took full control of Qaddafi's hometown Sirte Thursday.

Moammar Qaddafi's blood-streaked body has been stashed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center as Libyans try to keep it away from crowds as they figure out where and when to bury the hated leader.

An AP correspondent saw the body Friday at the shopping center in the coastal city of Misrata, home of the fighters who killed the ousted leader a day earlier in his hometown of Sirte.

The body, stripped to the waist and wearing beige trousers, is laid on a bloodied mattress on the floor of a room-sized freezer where restaurants and stores in the center keep perishables. A bullet hole is visible on the left side of his head and in the center of his chest. Dried blood streaks his arms and head.

The burial of Qaddafi has been delayed until the circumstances of his death can be further examined and a decision is made about where to bury the body, Libyan officials said Friday, as the U.N. human rights office called for an investigation into his death.

The transitional leadership had said it would bury the dictator Friday in accordance with Islamic tradition. Bloody images of Qaddafi's last moments in the hands of angry captors have raised questions over his treatment minutes before his death. One son, Muatassim, was also killed but the fate of Qaddafi's one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam was unclear. Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said Seif al-Islam was wounded and being held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan. But Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam on Friday that the son's whereabouts were uncertain.
Shammam said Qaddafi's body was still in Misrata, where it was taken after he was found in his hometown of Sirte, and revolutionary forces were discussing where it should be interred. Thursday's death of Qaddafi, two months after he was driven from power and into hiding, decisively buries the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

It also thrusts Libya into a new age in which its transitional leaders must overcome deep divisions and rebuild nearly all its institutions from scratch to achieve dreams of democracy. Many Libyans awoke after a night of jubilant celebration and celebratory gunfire with hope for the future but also concern that their new rulers might repeat the mistakes of the past.
Khaled Almslaty, a 42-year-old clothing vendor in Tripoli, said he wished Qaddafi had been captured alive. "But I believe he got what he deserved because if we prosecuted him for the smallest of his crimes, he would be punished by death," he said. "Now we hope the NTC will accelerate the formation of a new government and ... won't waste time on irrelevant conflicts and competing for authority and positions."
Bloody images of Qaddafi's last moments also cast a shadow over the celebrations, raising questions over how exactly he died. Video on Arab television stations showed a crowd of fighters shoving and pulling the goateed, balding Qaddafi, with blood splattered on his face and soaking his shirt.

Qaddafi struggled against them, stumbling and shouting as the fighters pushed him onto the hood of a pickup truck. One fighter held him down, pressing on his thigh with a pair of shoes in a show of contempt. Fighters propped him on the hood as they drove for several moments, apparently to parade him around in victory.
"We want him alive. We want him alive," one man shouted before Qaddafi was dragged off the hood, some fighters pulling his hair, toward an ambulance. Later footage showed fighters rolling Qaddafi's lifeless body over on the pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. His body was then paraded on a car through Misrata, a nearby city that suffered a brutal siege by regime forces during the eight-month civil war that eventually ousted Qaddafi. Crowds in the streets cheered, "The blood of martyrs will not go in vain."
Libyan leaders said it appeared that Qaddafi had been caught in the crossfire and it was unclear who fired the bullet that killed him. Shammam said a coroner's report showed that Qaddafi was killed by a bullet to the head and died in the ambulance on the way to a field hospital. Qaddafi was already injured from battle when he was found in the drainage pipe, Shammam said.

"It seems like the bullet was a stray and it could have come from the revolutionaries or the loyalists," Shammam said, echoing an account given by Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril the night before. "The problem is everyone around the event is giving his own story." Shammam said that the NTC was expecting a report from Financial Minister Ali Tarhouni who was sent as an envoy to Misrata on Thursday.
The governing National Transitional Council said interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will formally declare liberation on Saturday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the revolution against Qaddafi's rule began in mid-February. The NTC has always said it will form a new interim government within a month of liberation and will hold elections within eight months. NATO's governing body, meanwhile, was meeting Friday to decide when and how to end the seven-month bombing campaign in Libya, a military operation whose success has helped reinvigorate the Cold War alliance.
The U.N. Human Rights Council established an independent panel earlier this year to investigate abuses in Libya, and spokesman Rupert Colville said it would likely examine the circumstances of the 69-year-old leader's death. He said it was too early to say whether the panel -- which includes Canadian judge Philippe Kirsch, the first president of the International Criminal Court -- would recommend a formal investigation at the national or international level. "We believe there is a need for an investigation," Colville said. "More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of fighting or was executed after his capture."

"The two cell phone videos that have emerged, one of him alive, and one of him dead, taken together are very disturbing," he told reporters in Geneva. Mohamed Sayeh, a senior member of NTC, said representatives from the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court would come to a "go through the paperwork."
Sayeh also says Qaddafi's body is still in Misrata, where it was taken after his killing in Sirte. He says Qaddafi will be buried with respect according to Islam tradition and will not have a public funeral. The ICC did not issue any official comments about Qaddafi, but judges at the court would need official confirmation -- most likely a DNA sample from the body -- that Qaddafi is dead before they could formally withdraw his indictment.
Qaddafi, Seif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi have been charged with crimes against humanity for the brutal crackdown on dissent as the uprising against the regime began in mid-February and escalated into a civil war.

The Libyan dictator, who faced an ignominious but gruesome death, had hidden huge amounts of cash, gold reserves and investments and the amount is double that Western governments previously had suspected, the Los Angeles Times reported.

It claimed that Western officials have struggled all year not only to identify Gaddafi''s money but also to convince countries such as India, China and Russia to seize Libyan investments as required by the UN Security Council resolutions.

If the value proves accurate, the paper said, Gaddafi will go down in the history as the most rapacious as well as one of the most bizarre leaders of the world on a scale with the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire or the late Phillipino president Ferdinand Marcos.

The newspaper said that US administration officials were stunned last spring when they stumbled upon USD 37 billion in Libyan regime''s accounts and investments in the US. They quickly moved to freeze them, before Gaddafi or his aides could shift them.

Similarly, governments in France, UK, Germany and Italy have seized control of more than USD 30 billion held in these countries. .

Monday, October 17, 2011

The First Version of Microsoft Windows, Windows 1.0, with simple applications and the concept of multitasking on PC

1987 Windows 2.0

The Second Version of Windows, Windows 2.0 with some fixes and the Control Panel.

1988 Windows 2.1

The Second Version of Windows with some additions, and some fixes, Windows 2.1, the Paint software is seen in this one!

1990 Windows 3.0

The Third Version of Windows, Windows 3.0, featuring the File Manager and Program Manager, replacing the old MS DOS based File and Program Managers.

1992 Windows 3.1

The later released upgraded version of Windows 3.0, which had support for 32-bit Disk Access, Personalization options and had the Minesweeper game for the first time.

1995 Windows 95

Windows 95, the changed look, the new interface and the beginning of the form of Windows which we see now. Enhanced Graphics and better Communication Programs.

1998 Windows 98

Windows 98, one of the most successful versions of Windows till now, this version of Windows can still be seen in some PCs even today. With Extended Softwares, better Performance, this Version was the first milestone in the path of the development of Windows.

2000 Windows ME

Windows ME or Windows Millenium Edition, though not a very popular version of Windows, but still it had some better tools and performance than the previous ones in some cases.

2001 Windows XP

Windows XP, the Daddy of all versions of Windows, the most popular version of windows even today. Windows XP is still used today because of its unmatched performance, tools and interface. This has been the best version of Windows till the arrival of Windows 7.

2006 Windows Vista

Windows Vista, though it didnâ€™t go so well in the public, but still its a good version of Windows specially for the interface the Windows Aeroâ„¢ Effect, making the Window Transparency work like magic.

2009 Windows 7

Windows 7, the best version of Windows till date. With the new and advanced features such as the Superbar, this version of Windows created another milestone for Microsoft after Windows 98 and Windows XP. Windows 7 features an unbeatable user interface, and powerful tools that makes it the best among the rest.

2012 Windows 8

Windows 8, to be released in the late 2012. The interface of Windows 8 as seen at the D9 Conference. A better version of Windows as proposed by Microsoft, with the changed User Interface.

Chicken fingers came about in the late 1970s, and they proved to be the perfect utensil-free food for picky children. According to market research from the Mintel Group, chicken fingers were the third most popular item on American menus in 2010, behind steak and Caesar salad.

Still, as popular as chicken fingers are, the consensus among adult eaters was that the food was child's play and would never grow up.

But the generation gap is murkier than it appears. As I discovered recently at Mitzi's Restaurant, in downtown Winnipeg, Canada, a raging chicken finger fan is hiding below the surface of most adults. At this 33-year-old Chinese restaurant, the lunchtime lineup stretches out the door for homemade chicken fingers.

Added to the menu in 1988 by owner Peter Eng, who felt he could do better than the frozen ones his kids were eating, the 125 pounds of fingers served daily at Mitzi's (mitzi sounds like the Cantonese word for tasty) are made from scratch. "Others grind [the meat] or mold it," says Shirley Eng, who, like her husband, hails from Hong Kong. "Ours is real chicken." Fresh breasts are sliced into strips, then marinated overnight in salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, paprika, and other seasonings. Flour-dusted and dredged in an egg wash, the chicken is coated in breadcrumbs (ground loaves of supermarket white), and fried in canola oil.

Unlike the uniform fingers most places serve, Mitzi's are thin, short, and slightly gnarled by the fryer's heat. The breading is light and crisp, and the juicy flesh has just enough spicy, sweet flavor to enliven the chicken, which is best dipped in Mitzi's signature honey-dill sauce.

Peter Eng's rendition is so good that a food once irksome to him has turned out to be a boon for business. On Mitzi's predominantly Chinese menu, the non-Asian fingers stick out like a, well, sore thumb. Still, says Shirley Eng, they make up 80 percent of Mitzi's business.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Make the dipping sauce: In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise with the honey, dill, mustard powder, and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, and stir together until smooth; set honey-dill dipping sauce aside.

2. Make the chicken fingers: In a medium bowl, toss together chicken, sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and mustard; set aside. Place flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs in 3 separate shallow dishes; set aside. Pour oil to a depth of 2″ into a 6-qt. Dutch oven; heat over medium-high heat until deep-fry thermometer reads 325°. Working in batches, coat chicken in flour, shake off excess, and dip in eggs; coat in breadcrumbs. Fry chicken until golden brown and crisp, about 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Repeat with remaining chicken. Serve with dipping sauce.

Microsoft have launched the newest version of their Windows Phone operating system - codenamed "Mango". Discover some of the new features.

For a long time the next version of Windows Phone has been known under the name "Mango". The new release includes hundreds of new features that will deliver smarter and easier communications, apps and internet experiences.

Furthermore, we can expect to see new Windows Phone handsets from the likes of Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE in the not-so-distant future. Remember, this is on top of the new Nokia models born out of the Nokia/Microsoft alliance back in February - now that's a lot of phones to get excited about.

It was tragedy on the race track as Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon died after his car became ensnared in a fiery 15-car pileup, flew over another vehicle and landed in a catch fence just outside turn 2 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Take a look at these dramatic visuals, which once again reiterate no matter how sophisticated motorsport safety standards are, danger persists

The 33-year-old racer was a two-time Indy winner, including this year's race. Three other drivers, including championship contender Will Power, were hurt in the pileup during Lap 11. Wheldon was airlifted from the track to University Medical Center; about two hours later, his colleagues were told of his death by IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, who said Wheldon's injuries were "unsurvivable."